There is a big difference between fighting the cold war and fighting radical Islam. The rules have changed and we haven't.

I think the greatest single enemy is the misuse of information, the perversion of truth in the hands of terribly skillful people.

I move my lips when I read -- I'm painfully slow -- so I like really good English.

The religious cant that will send American troops into battle is perhaps the most sickening aspect of this surreal war-to-be. Bush has an arm-lock on God. And God has very particular political opinions. God appointed America to save the world in any way that suits America. God appointed Israel to be the nexus of America's Middle Eastern policy, and anyone who wants to mess with that idea is a) anti-Semitic, b) anti-American, c) with the enemy, and d) a terrorist.

I've never been able to write a book without one very strong character in my rucksack.

In the hands of politicians grand designs achieve nothing but new forms of the old misery.

Ideologies have no heart of their own. They're the whores and angels of our striving selves.